Traces of a Body: the Corporeal Image Explored through Painting, Photography, and the Social Construct of Looking (original) (raw)

In Visual Pleasure, Laura Mulvey describes how human curiosity and the desire to look intermingle with a fascination with likeness and recognition: the human face, the human body, the relationship between the human form and its surroundings, the visible presence of the person in the world. 1 Mulvey's analysis of scopophilia, deriving pleasure from looking, emphasizes recognition and misrecognition in objectivity and self-image. " The image recognised is conceived as the reflected body of the self, but its misrecognition as superior, projects this body outside itself as an ideal ego, the alienated subject." (Ibid., 17) Consequently, this misrecognition is caused by the gendered difference in spectator and image representation. Mulvey argues that there is a "determining male gaze" in mainstream cinema, which "projects its fantasy onto the female figure," creating a split between the active male and passive female. 2 For this reason, the scopophilic pleasure in looking by way of cinematic forms continues to determine the female body as a sexual object.

Sign up for access to the world's latest research.

checkGet notified about relevant papers

checkSave papers to use in your research

checkJoin the discussion with peers

checkTrack your impact